More Sounds from the kids (Again)

A couple more samples of Carrie Ann's baby talk:
"This down"
Hold it
More of this
Please mommy!
Raspberries (or strawberries)
Say about that
Matthias was so proud of this fainting sound he made!
Matthias fainting
Bethany singing about her cute little sister:
Cute baby!

Some new ones which I haven't been able to capture: Carrie Ann says "simmick" for music, one which really tickles my funny bone. She can also say "Amedida Bededida" -- guess who??? And Dopdopdida for Poptropica, Matthias and Bethany's latest favourite game (I highly recommend it, as far as computer games go.)

Night pictures

Wow! The other night we went for a walk, and the moon looked really neat -- full, with a bit of a rainbow around it through the scattered clouds. I went out and tried to take a picture of it -- I actually found the moonlight setting on my camera! However, with the regular setting, I didn't get much, and with the moonlight setting, my hands were too shaky and made streaks of moon. Amazingly, my brother Rob in Korea took the very picture of the very moon, a very nice picture, by the way:


Thanks Rob! (His blog post)

Last night, it was incredibly hot (for us) -- up to 87 F inside the house, as hot as it's been all year. We couldn't sleep, so the kids and I headed outside to the tent. Around midnight, the wind picked up, and I decided to move inside before the rain came. After carrying sleeping Carrie Ann and Bethany inside, I came back out for Matthias. As I came up to the tent I looked up. Above, the clouds were dark. On the horizon, the clouds were dark. But in the middle was a bright spot. In the centre of the bright spot was a dark cloud in the shape of a heart. Wow! Love letters from God don't usually come so clearly spelled out! I had been fighting fear, as with every wind storm since the "mini-tornado" that passed a block from our house last year. But after that, it was as if God had said to me, "I promise not to blow your house down with this storm." I tried to get a picture of it, but by the time I ran in the house to get the camera and back out, the heart clouds had blown apart. So I can't share the picture, only the thousand words this time! God loves us a lot, and he is willing to tell us -- just ask, then keep your eyes open!

Swimming for Muscular Dystrophy

I wanted to share this message from ParentProjectMuscularDystrophy, a site supporting Duchenne and Becker Muscular Dystrophy people and their families:

Olympic Gold for Ryan Lochte & PPMD


We’ve been updating you on Ryan Lochte, the Olympic swimmer who is supporting Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, and now we can proudly say that he will be bringing home two gold medals and two bronze medals, as well as a new world record! This incredible athlete, swimming on behalf of those with Duchenne, has truly become one of the 2008 Olympic heroes.

We wanted to give you an opportunity to congratulate, thank, or just fawn over Ryan! We will be bundling up and passing along letters and emails to him, upon his return from Beijing. To take part, simply email info@parentprojectmd.org and put “For Ryan Lochte” in the subject line. Or, if you would rather send something the old fashioned way, mail it to:
Ryan Lochte
c/o Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy
158 Linwood Plaza, Suite 220
Fort Lee, New Jersey 07024

You can also support Ryan by giving a donation to Ryan’s personal fundraising page. Just click here and say thank you to Ryan, while helping PPMD end Duchenne.

The Olympics are not over, but what a thrilling start and what a rare treat to have someone competing on our community’s behalf!

More Sounds from the kids

I thought it was time to post a few more of the sounds the kids made!

Bethany and Carrie Ann singing
Bethany singing
Carrie Ann crying --yes, even our sweet, cute little girl has her moments!
Carrie Ann -- really loud!
Daddy's Home! -- one of the girls' favourite phrases when they see the car drive up in the driveway!
Jesus goes up, up and away! -- Carrie Ann was very impressed with the story of the ascension!
Matthias and Bethany laughing
Stories -- I posted this one before, but if you didn't finish it then, you can listen a bit farther now!

Enjoy!

Computer

Bethany says, "Cutis" for computer (I'm not sure why...), and Carrie Ann says, "Putah". One day, Carrie tried to imitate Bethany asking to go on the computer, and said, "Cutosis". Huh?

Bethany is another great word. Matthias said, "Bethaninininiai", Bethany said, "Bessassa", and Carrie Ann says, "Betadane" or "Betadine". Now she can already say, "Betany", but today it came out like this: "BetaNEEEEEEEEE!"

The kids love swimming -- though Matthias not as much anymore. Bethany can swim underwater about 10 ft, and above for about 3. She is just learning to swim underwater, then pop her head up and take a breath, then swim again, in water that is over her head (closely supervised, of course). Matthias is learning to push off from my legs and glide to the wall -- but he's scared to go more than 3 or 4 feet from the wall.

Today Carrie Ann poured her water on her plate, then said, "Simming! Food simming!" What will they think of next?

Meteor Shower

Ever since we read in one of Matthias ' space books that meteor showers are a regular, predictable event, I've wanted to catch one. Well, last night was the peak of the main one, the Perseid meteor shower. We went out at about 1 am, after the moon finally set (it was casting too much light to see the meteors). In the next half hour to 45 minutes, I saw about 7 meteors, and Frank and Bethany about 5 each. (Matthias didn't want to get out of bed!) For a good write-up, see Spectacular Summer Sights: Shooting Stars by Joe Rao of Space.com. His picture is a good reflection of what we were seeing:

They will dwindle off slowly, and I read that there are more meteors in the early morning, so if it is clear, get up early in the next few days and see if you can catch some yourself!

Love and Dancing

Rob had an awesome post from his friend Tamie, about how hard it sometimes is for us to feel the love that God and others have for us. Rob's post Tamie's post
This part particularly struck me: How I am missing the joys of my life, missing the glorious cosmic dance. Not because I'm not a part of it, but because I'm deaf to just how much of a part of it I am. I can't hear that the music is everywhere.
I should tell you that when Carrie Ann dragged me outside for a walk in the rain, and we saw the rainbow, I had just been sitting on the couch feeling depressed, unloved, and unappreciated. I prayed that God would give me a sign that he really loved me! I knew right away that it was an amazing rainbow, and it was really neat that I got such a great picture of it. But it took me a little longer to suddenly realize that that rainbow was also God's answer to my prayer! Last night, watching the meteors with Bethany and Frank, was one of those times of dancing consciously along with the cosmic dance, of listening actively to the music of the spheres. God puts on a spectacular show for us, and we can miss it because we're too busy, observe it academically, or participate in wonder and praise. If we choose the third, we will grow in love and grace!
Here's the rainbow again:

... and a picture of the sky on the way home after the rainbow:

"A glorious cosmic dance." Thanks, Tamie.

Rainbow

Carrie Ann wanted to go outside for a walk, but it was kind of raining a little. I went anyway, and we saw the most intense rainbow from the park! God still loves us, everyone.

Hot, Pot and Cherries

So, this week I've been canning cherries. (Remember, Deb?) Monday we canned pitted cherries in pure blended and strained cherry juice -- boy was that a mess! The cherries splash all over when the pit comes out. I cleaned for two hours after the last load was done! Tuesday we did whole cherries, and the juice with the steam juicer. Matthias had so much fun he wanted to make cherry juice next. Wednesday we got started too late and Frank needed the car, so we went swimming instead of canning -- it was so hot, we were totally sweaty again by the time we got home! Thursday, yesterday, we did the juice Matthias wanted. It was really hot outside -- up to about 35 C, I think, and inside we had the steamer running until almost 5 pm. It got up to 88 F inside the house. So I was really glad when it was all over and I could settle down in the tent outside -- we've had it set up in the yard for about a week now. When it was cooler out, it was hard to sleep because it got too cold -- I had to sleep with a hoodie on! Last night, it was wonderfully cool, especially with the whole house so hot still! The only drawback was the pot smoke drifting over us from the new neighbours -- argh! I found out recently that if I inhale pot thickly enough my airways close and I choke on it (someone was smoking right outside the library door, and I walked out unawares and took a deep breath of it, and coughed uncontrollably for five minutes). So I may have to talk to the neighbours -- we've smelled it a couple other times at night, but it didn't bother us until I wanted to sleep out in the tent!!
So if you come visit, be sure to have some canned cherries or cherry juice! We did 21 jars of pitted cherries, 14 jars of whole cherries, 12 jars of juice, one cookie tray of frozen cherries and we have a fridge full to eat fresh. Wow!

Long sentence!

Yesterday, Carrie Ann came out with her longest sentence yet! Bethany was playing on the computer, and Carrie Ann said, "Dora, play Dora" to ask her to switch to the online Dora games. Bethany switched over, but then had to go to the bathroom for a minute. This drove Carrie crazy, as she was eagerly anticipating the Dora game! So she said to me, "Mommy, play Dora -- Mommy, sit down computer button Dora!" (Computer sounds like putah.) That's at least a five word sentence (counting sit down as one word, because that's how Carrie uses it). So far she's only done two or at most three word ones, but she is definitely learning fast!